Space Precinct: Deadline

Space Precinct: Episode 8 Deadline

Brogan & Haldane stumble upon a couple of aliens who kidnap others for illegal organ transplants. Is eminent surgeon Dr Jorry (Steven Berkoff) involved? Meanwhile, street child con artist Speedy's protector is kidnapped by them. Can Brogan find him in time? Where is their secret base? And having promised his daughter a present if she got 100 on her Maths test, where in Demeter City will Brogan find a jar of peanut butter? When Brogan gets snatched too, it's a race against time.

This is quite an adult tale, not really suitable for small children, despite featuring two children prominently. In spite of the unoriginal plot, this episode is much better written, directed, paced (good editing), and acted than the previous ones. As befits an action director, John Glen keeps the pace up, but this time hasn't forgotten his actors.

Steven Berkoff, always reliable especially as a villain, is very good as Dr Jorry, while Truan Munro, in a potentially embarrassing turn as the child villain, is also very good, never cute, and delivering his lines well. Even Simone Bendix has improved this episode.

Add to this some excellent alien costume designs, we get to see several new species, and the production design and set dressing is also exemplary, check out the inaptly named Paradise Street set, complete with alien hookers (I told you it's not for kids).

And as if they'd read my last post on the previous episode, we get Simone Bendix showing off her legs and looking sexy when she goes undercover as a journalist. The ending meanwhile, is action packed, and if the human interest epilogue had the potential to be cringe-inducing, it actually isn't, avoiding this due to good dialogue and acting. Now this was a much better episode. Hopefully, they're now up and running.